PPL SHOP becomes Furnish after makeover

When a retailer changes, it risks alienating some customers. The PPL SHOP, which opened 22 years ago as a surplus shop in northeast Minneapolis, probably won't have that problem after changing its name to Furnish.

"People never understood the acronym," said Sue Jaqua, chief operations officer. "Some people knew Project for Pride in Living, but hardly anyone knew that SHOP stood for surplus home and office products."

Count me among the clueless. Regardless of the name, PPL always represented, in my opinion, the cheapest place to buy used office furniture. But the selection, especially for home furnishings, was always hit-and-miss. Since the nonprofit store depends mostly on donations, buyers never know what to expect. With the name change, Furnish hopes to narrow the focus on office and home and de-emphasize the charitable roots, at least in name.

As much as nonprofit agencies such as Goodwill or Hope Chest might want to think so, hardly anyone shops at thrift or surplus stores to support the charities. People shop to find deals. Furnish is no exception. If a customer discovers that Furnish supports an on-the-job training program that helps low-income individuals and families achieve self-sufficiency when he's buying a pristine sofa for $99, it's icing on the cake.

Part of Furnish's rebranding is a simplification of an identity that's always been a catch-22. Are we selling new or used? Office or home? Back in the late '80s when the store opened, buyers would find office furniture donated from supporters such as Honeywell and General Mills but also computers, forklifts and knickknacks. Customers could find a used office chair for $20 and a computer with an 8-inch floppy drive for not much more.

Then the store went through a period of buying returns from catalog retailers such as Signals, Wireless and Circa, owned at the time by Minnesota Public Radio. The home accessories, clothing and limited-edition sports memorabilia were great deals. PPL's prices were even lower than at the warehouse sales held by catalog merchandiser Rivertown Traders. When the store went through a Pier 1-type phase with cheaper home goods, customers who had gotten used to the higher-quality catalog goods lamented the decline.

No longer. The quality is back, and the store is cleaner and better organized. Seventy percent of the space is devoted to office furnishings (for home and small businesses), and 30 percent is for home goods (a few sofas, chairs, dining tables, but mostly accent items). Taking a cue from DaytonMarshallMacy's Oval Room, some of the merchandise is now grouped by brand and type. Just as Oval Room customers back in the 1960s might not have known Hanae Mori or Escada at first, Furnish is introducing buyers to high-end office furniture by Herman Miller, Kimball and Meridian.

That's a learning curve for shoppers who think all file cabinets are alike. In response, the store highlights some brand names and provides "compare at" prices from online sources. Web printouts show the price when the piece was new, compared with Furnish's used price, usually 70 to 80 percent lower.

Jeremy Peck of Turtle Lake, Wis., discovered Furnish when he and his business partner outgrew their home office. They spent $5,000 on four desks, a desk-table combo, a conference table and eight chairs. "I figured we'd spend $8,000, but for a lot less we got quality used furniture, not cardboard." Peck, who co-owns a software services company, had done his homework online and knew that he got good prices. The desks are modern L-shaped configurations with pull-out trays and holes for computer cables, he said.

Buyers expecting garage sale prices will be disappointed, but you can rarely please people who want something for nothing. Many buyers in this recession are searching for higher quality at bargain prices.

"We want to sell good stuff cheap, not cheap stuff cheaper," Jaqua said.

The guy who bought a $20 office chair from PPL in 1990 will probably be shocked to find used chairs for five times that price now. Some chairs start at $50, but a common upscale example is a used Equa upholstered desk chair by Herman Miller for $100 ($800 new). Herman Miller is the maker of the famous Aeron office chair, a pricey, ergonomically designed black mesh model.

Furnish was able to upgrade its selection in a bad economy partly because of businesses downsizing or closing. More companies donated desks, chairs, file cabinets and work spaces to Furnish.

Longtime customers will notice several changes at Furnish. Women's clothes are gone. "Too hard to compete with thrift, consignment and TJ Maxx," Jaqua said.

The same amount of space is devoted to home accents, but home furniture has expanded a bit. A Kimball 48-inch round table that could have come from an executive dining room at Cargill or Medtronic is fine for home use, too. It's $900 used, $2,680 when new. The chairs are $249 each, regularly $933. While Kimball might be too traditional for younger buyers, some of the vintage items attract buyers 30 to 45 years of age. The heavy metal desks that PPL couldn't give away five years ago sell quickly at $150. EcoBuzz contemporary work spaces made with sustainable materials sell to startup entrepreneurs, Jaqua said.

"It's the green aspect of buying used. Younger and older customers want to re-use. Knowing an item of quality will last longer makes it more appealing," Jaqua said. And the low prices don't hurt, either.

John Ewoldt • 612-673-7633 or jewoldt@startribune.com. If you spot a deal, share it at www.startribune.com/blogs/dealspotter.